66 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



Point. The bottom continued to show about 1700 fathoms for nearly 200 

 miles, and then shoaled very gradually to 1418 fathoms about 80 miles 

 from Chatham Island. The slope became quite steep, the 1000-fathom 

 line not being more than CO miles from Chatham Island. We ran 

 a short line south of Hood Island, and found a somewhat steeper slope 

 to that face of the Galapagos, reaching over 1700 fathoms in a distance 

 of less than 50 miles, when the bottom remained comparatively flat, 

 attaining a depth of 2000 fathoms about 100 miles farther south. This 

 depth we carried eastward on a line to Aguja Point, until half-way the 

 soundings had increased to over 2200 fathoms and remained at about 

 that depth to within 60 miles of the coast, -when the depth rapidly 

 shoaled. From Aguja Point we ran a line of soundings to the southwest 

 to a point about G75 miles west of Callao ; on this line the depths 

 gradually increased from 2200 fathoms, 100 miles oif the Point, to 

 nearly 2500 fathoms. On running east to Callao the depth soon in- 

 creased to about 2600 fathoms, and at a distance of about 80 miles off 

 Callao we dropped into the Milne-Edwards Deep and found a depth of 

 over 3200 fathoms. We spent a couple of days in developing this 

 deep, making soundings of 1490, 2845, 458, 1949, 2338, and 3120 

 fathoms; showing a great irregularity of the bottom within a compara- 

 tively limited area of less than sixty miles in diameter. Thus far all 

 our soundings have been made with the Lucas sounding-machine. 



In the Panamic basin to the northeast of the Galapagos we only 

 trawled off Mariato Point, but we occupied ten stations with the tow 

 nets, hauling both at the surface and at 300 fathoms, and vertically 

 from that depth ; we also continued this pelagic work at nearly all the 

 stations (35) from the Galapagos to Callao. 



When off Chatham Island we began to trawl and used the tow nets 

 regularly, occupying twenty stations. The nets were in charge of Mr. 

 F. M. Chamberlain. The pelagic collections, as a whole, are remarkably 

 rich. They are especially noteworthy for the great variety and number 

 of pelagic fishes obtained inside the 300-fathom line at a considerable 

 distance from shore, — from 300 to 650 miles. Many of these fishes 

 had been considered as true deep-sea fishes to be obtained only in the 

 trawl ■when dredging between 1000 and 1500 fathoms or more. On 

 one occasion the tow net brought up from 300 fathoms, the depth being 

 1752 fathoms, no less than 12 species of fishes; of one species of 

 Myctophum we obtaineil 18 specimens; of another, 37; of a third, 45; 

 in all, nearly 150 specimens. On other occasions it was not uncommon 

 to obtain 8 or 10 species, and from 50 to 100 specimens. Among the 



